The Anchorage 80 Furby Rescue!

Last night, I was on a skype call with a few friends, and we were talking about furbies. One of them was looking through craigslist and found this listing and sent us all the link:

Naturally, I was a bit amused, but mostly horrified. There were over 80 furbies in that lot (and also a couple hundred furby buddies and keychains), and they were all going to be shot?!

After calling the seller to secure a certain few furbies in the lot, I posted screenshots of the listing to my Tumblr blog to share my incredulity and sadness at the fact that I didn’t have the means to save them all from a pellet-riddled fate.

Not a half hour later, one of my Tumblr followers saw the post and commented:

“WAIT, THIS IS IN ANCHORAGE ALASKA?? I LIVE IN ANCHORAGE.”

And then:

“MY MOM IS CURRENTLY TEXTING THE SELLER TO SEE HOW MUCH HE WANTS FOR THE LOT. I MIGHT BE ABLE TO SAVE THEM ALL.”

I happen to be friends with the commenter, FurbyFawn, so I sent them a private message, asking, “So, that whole “pellet gun targets” thing is a joke, right? They wouldn’t really do that, right?”

They replied, “It’s not a joke. This is Alaska.”

Cue more horror from me.

We talked for a little bit, both trying to calm our anxiety about the whole thing, wondering if they would be able to save the furbies. Eventually they went to bed, but I was still up, thinking, “What if something goes wrong?”

I had nothing to fear, though.

This afternoon, FurbyFawn reblogged the Tumblr post again, this time announcing that they were in the car with their mom and brother, on their way to buy the furbies from the lister. Eventually, they reblogged again and commented this, and the post blew past 200 notes because so many furby fans were reblogging and adding celebratory comments:

“THE FURBIES HAVE BEEN SAVED. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. ALL OF THEM ARE IN MY POSSESSION AND GOING HOME!”

The furbies are now at FurbyFawn’s house, and while they are keeping a lot of them, many of them will be re-homed to forever homes, where they’ll never have to fear pellet guns again. When I originally posted the screenshots, I never thought that this story would get a happy ending, but here we are! The Anchorage 80 Furby Rescue is complete, and we can all rest easy now, knowing that they’re in good hands.